FourByThree successfully reaches end of project

Last Thursday, November 30th, the FourByThree consortium as well as its project officer and technical advisor gathered at IK4-TEKNIKER’s facilities for the final review meeting. During the meeting, all project results were reported and pilot scenarios were presented through videos and live demonstrations.

This meeting marked the official end of the project, which has been successful in reaching its ambitious goals. Technical advisor Sasa Jevtic stressed the need to contribute to a culture change regarding human-robot collaboration and to incorporate the end user’s perspective into research initiatives. Project officer Jan Ramboer congratulated the consortium and highlighted the importance to share that collaborative robotics is one of the strategies supported by the EU to increase the competitiveness of the European industry.

During the last three years, a consortium of 17 partners has worked together to design, build and test pioneering robotic solutions able to collaborate safely and efficiently with human operators in industrial manufacturing companies.

FourByThree succeeded in its goal to develop both hardware and software technologies that are suitable to be used in collaboration with human operators, safe and efficient, as well as easy to program and use. Thanks to the modular approach of the project, most of its results can be integrated with other robotic solutions that already exist in the market or are being developed. FourByThree solutions will be made available through an online platform.

“FourByThree has contributed to making the challenging vision of humans and robots working hand in hand in manufacturing activities a reality in the near future”, said project coordinator Iñaki Maurtua.

FourByThree responded to the demand that robots used in industry do not only provide accuracy and efficiency, but are also able to ensure safety when collaboration between operator and robot is required, even when the workspace is shared. Hardware and software solutions emerging from FourByThree have been tested in four pilot scenarios, focusing on different industrial processes: assembly, machine tending, welding, riveting and deburring.

The project had a total budget of 6.9 million euros and was partly funded by the EU within the European Framework Programme for Research and Innovation, Horizon 2020. The partners that made up the consortium are research centres, industrial and technological companies and universities, coordinated by Spain-based Research Centre IK4-TEKNIKER.